
Fruit Tree Cedar Apple Rust Risks and Prevention
While some diseases that impact trees can be found year-round or during multiple seasons, there are also many that tend to show up only during distinct parts of the year. One good example here is a condition known as cedar apple rust, which tends to inflict apple, crab-apple and similar trees during the spring period we’re currently in.
At Affordable Tree Care, we’re proud to offer a variety of arborist services to prevent tree disease and related issues, including tree spraying and several related solutions. We’ll help you identify and remedy issues like cedar apple rust and any others that may threaten trees on your property, plus provide prevention methods to halt these conditions before they ever show up. Here are some basics on cedar apple rust, how to spot it and what can be done about it.
Cedar Apple Rust Basics
Known scientifically as gymnosporangiumjuniperi-virginianae, cedar apple rust is a type of fungal disease that can impact apple trees, crab-apple trees, pear trees, hawthorn trees and also serviceberry and a few other fruit tree types. It typically shows up in spring, but requires juniper plants on the tree to have completed a two-year cycle first.
While cedar apple rust can be very harmful to trees, there’s one silver lining: It does not spread directly from tree-to-tree, but rather spreads based on spores that are blown around – spores from a given tree will only infect junipers the next year, not during the current one, and requires the disease to pass from junipers to the fruit and back to the junipers again.
What to Look For
Cedar apple rust will generally be very obvious to the eye when it infects trees on your property. It will form yellowish-orange lesions on leaves, beginning with pinhead-sized spots on their upper surfaces. Over time, these spots will get bigger and bigger, eventually becoming bright orange-yellow.
If you haven’t noticed it by this point, infected leaves will also drop from these trees early in the summer. Lesions on the fruit itself may develop later in the year. This means the tree spends extra time trying to replace lost leaves, which leaves it open to higher risk of other diseases.
Prevention Treatments
Luckily, there are several preventive spray treatments that will stop cedar apple rust from ever taking place on any of your fruit trees. Such sprays may include copper solutions, bio-fungicides and related products, which our arborists are experienced with and know precisely how to apply to keep your trees safe. If you have had even minor issues with cedar apple rust in the past, or if you’ve recently planted new fruit trees, contact our team about this services.
For more on cedar apple rust, or to learn about any of our tree spraying, treatment, trimming or removal services, speak to the staff at Affordable Tree Care today.